the next time i come i hope you are t/here —P.L. Thomas
sleeves
my father’s fingers brought her sleep
“my father moved through dooms of love,” e.e. cummings
i wear my father on my sleeves it is a childhood memory specific and vivid as if true my father taught me how to wear a collared shirt properly tucked in carefully rolling up each sleeve three times with the cuff neat and smooth maybe on the same day he taught me how to tie a necktie like a grown man my father was wrong about many things but i carry him in my collared shirts and ties i wear my father on my sleeves —P.L.Thomas
the universe (Year 61)
no Body understands the universe a few never even consider the universe they are lucky many exclaim that they know the Universe they are dangerous others spend their lives trying to understand the universe they struggle to sleep some know only one thing: that they do not understand the universe somehow they sleep the universe speaks to the fewest among us they listen no Body understands the universe —P.L. Thomas
december 2021 prayer
The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.
“The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats
the day is blanketed gray the sky the color of smoke the entire world burned until nothing remains except ash i cannot feel anything because i feel everything a tree stripped of bark trunk and limbs the color of bone we sat in cars houses apartments watching through our windows the world razed maybe next year will be better we pray if we stay inside waiting and hoping it true —P.L. Thomas
autumn
autumn is a mother fucker trees all topped in yellows and reds the colors of death before the leaves all fall we gather around smiling “isn’t the foliage beautiful” ignoring the browned leaves crunching as we walk —P.L. Thomas
binary code
i am one you are too two as one orbiting the sun —P.L. Thomas
blue&black
“Paint myself in blue and red and black and gray/All of the beautiful colors are very, very meaningful”
“Mr. Jones,” Counting Crows
of late i have been wearing
too many shirts along the spectrum of blue
blue is a heavy color to wear
not like black which is the color of no light
the opposite of the sun
which is the color of all light
blue&black sit against the skin
like the aftermath of tripping and falling
being tossed around below deck
with an ocean raging all around you
•
out of the blue i keep losing my balance
distracted by anything colored the absence of you
it is never about the certainty of the falling
but the aftermath of the landing in blue&black
10 days after the falling and the landing
the bruising jaundiced and bone sore to the touch
i have begun choosing only shirts in gray
and walking steadily as if you are holding my hand
—P.L. Thomas
dragons
“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination
― Ursula K. Le Guin
no autopsy necessary for the self-defeating deniers burst open at the sternum like a scene from Alien with a frantic “o shit” look on their grimacing faces littering our streets and floors like exterminated cockroaches scattered about for the rest of us who revered the possibility of “dragons” either to walk around the decay or risk our lives cleaning up their mess —P.L. Thomas
the existential couple: “the struggle itself”
Yes, I’m listening, I’m listening
I can tell that you are serious
“90-Mile Water Wall,” The National
the existential couple loved each other like shouldering a boulder up a mountain watching it slip away each pause at the top before descending silently hand-in-hand the boulder of course was their love their burden and their purpose forever watching them from a distance in the valley many saw only the burden of a boulder philosophers and poets understood “the struggle itself” imploring us to imagine the existential couple happy the existential couple loved each other like shouldering a boulder up a mountain watching it slip away each pause at the top before descending silently hand-in-hand —P.L. Thomas
did we (this story of me and you)
Just come outside and leave with me
“Day I Die,” The National
did we fall in love the way we fall asleep softly and then hard reaching one for the other through dreams and tangled covers • this is our true i will die on you leaving you blue our days too few there’s nothing we can do this story of me and you • loving is not dreaming living is not pretending • did we fall in love the way we fall asleep softly and then hard reaching one for the other through dreams and tangled covers —P.L. Thomas
Selected Poetry 